Costa Book Awards, 2015
The Costa Book Awards, 2015 have been announced. These awards are open to writers from Britain and Ireland and given in five categories: novel, first novel, biography, poetry and children's book. The overall winner of book of the year will be announced 26 January. A selection of the winners are included below, you can request copies of these from the Library. Read more at Costa Book Awards 2015.
2015 Costa Novel Award
Winner
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
A God in Ruins relates the life of Teddy Todd – would-be poet, heroic World War II bomber pilot, husband, father, and grandfather – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face living in a future he never expected to have.
This gripping, often deliriously funny yet emotionally devastating book looks at war – that great fall of Man from grace – and the effect it has, not only on those who live through it, but on the lives of the subsequent generations. It is also about the infinite magic of fiction.Those who loved the bestselling Life After Life will recognise Teddy as Ursula Todd's adored younger brother – but for those who have not read it, A God in Ruins stands fully on its own
Shortlist
The Green Road by Anne Enright
A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale
At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison
2015 Costa First Novel Award
Winner
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
Two brothers. One mute, the other his lifelong protector.
Year after year, their family visits the same sacred shrine on a desolate strip of coastline known as the Loney, in desperate hope of a cure.
In the long hours of waiting, the boys are left alone. And they cannot resist the causeway revealed with every turn of the treacherous tide, the old house they glimpse at its end . . .
Many years on, Hanny is a grown man no longer in need of his brother's care.
But then the child's body is found.
And the Loney always gives up its secrets, in the end.
Shortlist
Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume
The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer
Things We Have in Common by Tasha Kavanagh
2015 Costa Biography Award
Winner
The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is the great lost scientist: more things are named after him than anyone else. There are towns, rivers, mountain ranges, the ocean current that runs along the South American coast, there's a penguin, a giant squid - even the Mare Humboldtianum on the moon.
His colourful adventures read like something out of a Boy's Own story: Humboldt explored deep into the rainforest, climbed the world's highest volcanoes and inspired princes and presidents, scientists and poets alike. Napoleon was jealous of him; Simon Bolívar's revolution was fuelled by his ideas; Darwin set sail on the Beagle because of Humboldt; and Jules Verne's Captain Nemo owned all his many books. He simply was, as one contemporary put it, 'the greatest man since the Deluge'.
Shortlist
The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding
John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr
2015 Costa Novel Award
Winner
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
A God in Ruins relates the life of Teddy Todd – would-be poet, heroic World War II bomber pilot, husband, father, and grandfather – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face living in a future he never expected to have.
This gripping, often deliriously funny yet emotionally devastating book looks at war – that great fall of Man from grace – and the effect it has, not only on those who live through it, but on the lives of the subsequent generations. It is also about the infinite magic of fiction.Those who loved the bestselling Life After Life will recognise Teddy as Ursula Todd's adored younger brother – but for those who have not read it, A God in Ruins stands fully on its own
Shortlist
The Green Road by Anne Enright
A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale
At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison
2015 Costa First Novel Award
Winner
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
Two brothers. One mute, the other his lifelong protector.
Year after year, their family visits the same sacred shrine on a desolate strip of coastline known as the Loney, in desperate hope of a cure.
In the long hours of waiting, the boys are left alone. And they cannot resist the causeway revealed with every turn of the treacherous tide, the old house they glimpse at its end . . .
Many years on, Hanny is a grown man no longer in need of his brother's care.
But then the child's body is found.
And the Loney always gives up its secrets, in the end.
Shortlist
Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume
The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer
Things We Have in Common by Tasha Kavanagh
2015 Costa Biography Award
Winner
The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is the great lost scientist: more things are named after him than anyone else. There are towns, rivers, mountain ranges, the ocean current that runs along the South American coast, there's a penguin, a giant squid - even the Mare Humboldtianum on the moon.
His colourful adventures read like something out of a Boy's Own story: Humboldt explored deep into the rainforest, climbed the world's highest volcanoes and inspired princes and presidents, scientists and poets alike. Napoleon was jealous of him; Simon Bolívar's revolution was fuelled by his ideas; Darwin set sail on the Beagle because of Humboldt; and Jules Verne's Captain Nemo owned all his many books. He simply was, as one contemporary put it, 'the greatest man since the Deluge'.
Shortlist
The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding
John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr
